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The silent hum of an air handler, the gentle slide of rain against the side of frosted glass.
A small hand holds up a slightly larger screen just a short distance from a pair of pensive blue eyes. Hair frames the sides of an angular face, a face partially hidden behind knees held up against her lips by her other arm, but is tied back carelessly into a ponytail of sorts. There's a clicking, or perhaps a tapping, that sounds off after every second in the background - a novel chrono made with analogue parts to tell the time in a cutesy way rather than the sterility of digital - but for the most part the room is rather quiet. The last several days have played out similarly, a regimen of working to her limit and then coming home to stare at a screen that served as the only source of illumination so late at night - and also as her single greatest source of stress. But she doesn't read the contents of the display with panic or concern - instead, etched into her features like they've been carved and set in there, is just a look of defeat.
After a moment or two of slightly labored breathing, chest heaving now behind the legs pressed up at her front, she tosses the screen to the side, sending it sliding over the covers and then off the side of the bed. Her eyes follow it and consider moving to reach for it, but instead she hears a voice from down the hall that pulls her back to the drab reality she was living in now - that she'd moved back in with her parents after things hadn't worked out with chasing her dreams. Defeat turned to discomfort as a name she wasn't happy to hear floated passed her ears - a name she'd tried to embrace, to accept that the reality she had wanted wasn't going to come true as long as she was willing to trade a little bit of happiness for stability and safety. A knock at her door follows, she hadn't answered back, hadn't acknowledged the call just yet, but the rap of knuckles against the door trigger some sense of urgency to do just that - despite being well into her adult years by now. "Yes?" A slightly less pitched voice called out, sounding quiet different from her own despite it sliding out from behind her lips. Like she had a cold, or something, perhaps.
"You're wasting your time in your room again?" A man's voice asked, her father's. It invites a stillness that she hadn't noticed until now to creep into focus.
She hesitates.
"Hello?" He asks impatiently, as if the momentary pause she'd given him to search for an answer was far too long for him to handle.
"I'm just tired." She answers meekly, accidentally letting her real voice slip in without realizing it. "Is there someone else in there with you?"
Another pause.
"No." The hoarse voice answered back anxiously.
"Your voice must have cracked; well, get some rest."
Then silence.
A sharp inhale followed shortly after the footfalls faded, her free hand reaching back to tug on the tie that had kept her hair from falling forward into her face - which it promptly did as it was freed. Her parents had always wanted a boy, someone to marry into some other family that hadn't fallen quite as low as them on the social ladder, but instead they'd been given a girl - a girl they'd made act like she wasn't one for as long as she lived under their roof. A roof she'd been free from until her life had started to unravel at the seams. Her small gaze turned towards the dimmed light of her screen on the floor, towards what could have been a way out - now just another door shut in her face. She let out a deep breath as she tried to gather a sense of purpose, tried to figure out how to salvage what she had left - she had been good at that, picking up the pieces and putting them together in a way that let her figure a way forward.
The pieces, then, had been bigger, newer - now they were smaller, nearly dust.
Honestly, it all felt a little bleak.
She'd even managed to estrange the few friends she had up until that point in the moments before she'd thrown the screen away from her. Living two separate lives was starting to catch up to her, only now it seemed like neither one was better than the other.
"Fuck." She whispered as she laid back into the pillow behind her, her legs sliding forward as she stretched out. Her hands were on her face now, eyes shut tightly closed, trying to hold in the slight trickle of tears that eventually escaped from the corner of her eyes anyways.
A small hand holds up a slightly larger screen just a short distance from a pair of pensive blue eyes. Hair frames the sides of an angular face, a face partially hidden behind knees held up against her lips by her other arm, but is tied back carelessly into a ponytail of sorts. There's a clicking, or perhaps a tapping, that sounds off after every second in the background - a novel chrono made with analogue parts to tell the time in a cutesy way rather than the sterility of digital - but for the most part the room is rather quiet. The last several days have played out similarly, a regimen of working to her limit and then coming home to stare at a screen that served as the only source of illumination so late at night - and also as her single greatest source of stress. But she doesn't read the contents of the display with panic or concern - instead, etched into her features like they've been carved and set in there, is just a look of defeat.
After a moment or two of slightly labored breathing, chest heaving now behind the legs pressed up at her front, she tosses the screen to the side, sending it sliding over the covers and then off the side of the bed. Her eyes follow it and consider moving to reach for it, but instead she hears a voice from down the hall that pulls her back to the drab reality she was living in now - that she'd moved back in with her parents after things hadn't worked out with chasing her dreams. Defeat turned to discomfort as a name she wasn't happy to hear floated passed her ears - a name she'd tried to embrace, to accept that the reality she had wanted wasn't going to come true as long as she was willing to trade a little bit of happiness for stability and safety. A knock at her door follows, she hadn't answered back, hadn't acknowledged the call just yet, but the rap of knuckles against the door trigger some sense of urgency to do just that - despite being well into her adult years by now. "Yes?" A slightly less pitched voice called out, sounding quiet different from her own despite it sliding out from behind her lips. Like she had a cold, or something, perhaps.
"You're wasting your time in your room again?" A man's voice asked, her father's. It invites a stillness that she hadn't noticed until now to creep into focus.
She hesitates.
"Hello?" He asks impatiently, as if the momentary pause she'd given him to search for an answer was far too long for him to handle.
"I'm just tired." She answers meekly, accidentally letting her real voice slip in without realizing it. "Is there someone else in there with you?"
Another pause.
"No." The hoarse voice answered back anxiously.
"Your voice must have cracked; well, get some rest."
Then silence.
A sharp inhale followed shortly after the footfalls faded, her free hand reaching back to tug on the tie that had kept her hair from falling forward into her face - which it promptly did as it was freed. Her parents had always wanted a boy, someone to marry into some other family that hadn't fallen quite as low as them on the social ladder, but instead they'd been given a girl - a girl they'd made act like she wasn't one for as long as she lived under their roof. A roof she'd been free from until her life had started to unravel at the seams. Her small gaze turned towards the dimmed light of her screen on the floor, towards what could have been a way out - now just another door shut in her face. She let out a deep breath as she tried to gather a sense of purpose, tried to figure out how to salvage what she had left - she had been good at that, picking up the pieces and putting them together in a way that let her figure a way forward.
The pieces, then, had been bigger, newer - now they were smaller, nearly dust.
Honestly, it all felt a little bleak.
She'd even managed to estrange the few friends she had up until that point in the moments before she'd thrown the screen away from her. Living two separate lives was starting to catch up to her, only now it seemed like neither one was better than the other.
"Fuck." She whispered as she laid back into the pillow behind her, her legs sliding forward as she stretched out. Her hands were on her face now, eyes shut tightly closed, trying to hold in the slight trickle of tears that eventually escaped from the corner of her eyes anyways.
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